So, The Times and Sunday Times are about to go public on how many people have signed up to the paywall. That means the numbers can't be too bad then, even if it remains fairly early days for the great pay-for-general-news experiment. Expect an announcement later this week, although probably not when News unleashes its first quarter numbers on Wednesday.

Those hoping for lots of detail will be disappointed though. The most likely outcome is that the number of people paying for online and iPad subscriptions will be lumped together in one great digital sum. With iPad subs doing pretty well, considering that iPad owners must surely be a subset of the British population, cynics would presume that the number of online subs is, well, slow.

The gossip is that the iPad subs number is about 43,000, although the figure is moving all the time. That's a lot higher than the last speculated upon number of 12,500, which dates back to July. But I've got no detail on the number of online sign ups - the last figure kicking around was 15,000. A slow, but arguably steady start.

It's possible, then, that the overall figure for all digital paying customers is somewhere around 100,000 on the belief that for every iPad sign up there is one and a bit online subs. ++ Update: There's a rumour knocking around that the figure is actually 105,000, but I can't vouch for it at all. If it's right, though, you read it here first.

Either figure, though, would be a decent number, which is notionally £12 million a year in revenue if you assume that the average digital buyer pays about £10 a month (the full price for online is £2 a week, so less than £10, but the iPad buyer pays a bit more forking out £9.99 for a little less than most months at 28 days).

At that level, the number of subs begins to look like it can offset the advertising revenues that would have been lost as a result of going behind the paywall. Assume there were £20 million to £30 million in the old days, and assume that the Times titles kept a bit of that money. But it is unlikely to be as simple as that.

The first problem is that any published figure is somewhat blurred by the existence of so many special offers. Like a digital version of the i newspaper, the first 28 days cost only £1 online. Many readers may be coming in at the trial price, and we're unlikely to know how many are from the limited data that will come out. Online revenue, in short, will be less for some time.

The second question is print sales. A print customer buying every day (which is the way the ABC counts them) is worth a little over £26 a month (taking into account the latest Sunday Times price rise), and in crude terms at least 2 and half times more valuable than a digital subscriber. And that proportion could be far more if those special offers are factored in.

Nevertheless, on this score, the Times titles are holding up. The Times has lost 3,638 paying UK customers since July, although the Sunday paper has gained 26,283 - which means that overall print circulation revenues are up. As long as that holds together, the online paying customers are adding to income - the trouble, at the moment, is that they are not paying very much.